He doesn’t really know why, but before he moved to Hong Kong, Marc Allante’s work was mainly black & white. He used charcoal, heavy graphite and pen for his art. New environments can give you new influences and inspiration. And moving to Asia has had an impact on Marc’s work. Marc started experimenting with color. There’s a certain fluidity to color, the way colors flow over into each other that appealed to him. He learns by doing and keeps experimenting with his style.
He doesn’t really choose colors very deliberately. His mood may affect the colors he uses (he’s felt happier since moving, that may have something to do with him using colors at all), but they’re not meant to add to the meaning of a particular piece. ‘I do believe it has an effect on your emotions…’ Marc explains, ‘…but it has a different effect on different people’. Colors shouldn’t really be categorized. To Marc the colors actually make the black & white stand out more, which is interesting as most people would say it the other way around. Especially black and gray are known to make colors stand out properly.
Why do a lot of the colors drip down the canvas? There’s a lot of airconditioning units in Hong Kong, sometimes dripping on you when you walk down the street. You can’t not be affected by that… (You can find more of Marc’s work at Society6.)
